I said "developing world", not Nigeria, which by no metric I am familiar with could be described as developing.
For the benefit of idiots such as Nanpa here, the developing world is primarily India and China, along with many other SE Asian countries.
These people can choose one of three paths when purchasing their computers.
1) Get a free OS such as Linux
2) Pay the equivalent of several months wages to Microsoft for the right to lease a copy of Windows
or
3) Get a "free" OS by pirating Windows.
Unsurprisingly, most of them choose box #3. Microsoft knows this, therefore they have taken great care not to make #3 an unviable option in the short term at least, because they are afraid that were they to do so, they would force most of the people in these countries to choose box #1.
And that is the worst possible outcome they can imagine.
This is not exactly true. OSX will take it on board, in fact they (apple) had a hand in drafting the "standard" if I recall correctly, OSX is closed source and Microsoft is keen to see apple survive (to a point) to keep the anti-trust dogs at bay.
As far as Linux is concerned, there is evidence that one of the main objectives of Palladium is to marginalise and destroy Linux. Microsoft knows full well that FOSS cannot properly "embrace" palladium and still retain the GPL.
Microsoft will argue (correctly) that for palladium to work, its internal workings must be kept secret, therefore the only people allowed access to it would be those willing to sign up to highly restrictive non-disclosure agreements with penalties imposed for the leaking of their "secrets".
Obviously this cannot work for a software development model that is predicated on openness and source code sharing.
So, sorry Linux, you can't be trusted, it's "go directly to jail, do not pass go" for you I'm afraid.
"Personally, I find it funny that anyone complains, as such things have been going on since the early 80s."
Personally, I find it funny ironic that Microsoft attained their present state of near-monopoly on the backs of the very pirates that they are now working so hard to close down.
I find it even more ironic that they choose to be much more lenient towards piracy in the developing world where they have still not managed to attain the state of vendor lock-in that is required in order for them to successfully pursue more onerous anti-piracy measures without running the risk of turning their future potential customers towards alternatives such as Linux.
Well, congratulations on preferring Windows to Linux on the desktop. I disagree wholeheartedly but I accept that is your to maintain that position.
What I don't understand is why I should accept becoming the internet equivalent of persona non gratis just because I choose not to accept being lorded over by some suited clowns in Redmond.
The paragraphs I quote below were written in 2002, over five years ago regarding Microsoft and their DRM intentions. It is eerily accurate. It could in fact have been written yesterday about Vista.
I suggest that you read it and think very carefully about where you hoist your metaphorical flag in this debate. I don't even care whether Vista is really better than Linux or not. To argue about such things is to miss the point entirely.
What we are talking about here is freedom. Freedom to choose and freedom to express, no more, no less.
With this announcement, Microsoft competitors and independent programmers should be gearing up for another court case, as this concept reeks of Redmond's historic anti-competitive tactics in the marketplace. Savvy consumers should be very concerned that Palladium will mean that their computers and information are no longer under their positive control but rather under the omnipresent surveillance and enforcement of a third party more interested in turning a profit than empowering their customers to think and act for themselves. The computer will essentially become a tool of surveillance, judgment and control over users, rather than a tool of innovation, communication, and enlightenment.
Given the pervasiveness of computers in modern society, the worldwide social ramifications of Palladium are enormous. Consider the ability of one entity -- in this case, Microsoft -- to dictate acceptable behavior and content (remember Smart Tags?) in service of its own commercial aspirations. If your behavior or actions are deemed 'unacceptable' by such a third party, you could find yourself impotent on the global stage. So you'd better toe the party line and be a good little Windows user.
Palladium represents a modern 'innovation' which could lead to a Digital Dark Age: a period of innovative stagnation where the majority of the world's computing population will become unwitting subjects and indentured servants to the profiteering desires of the new corporate ruling class, and Microsoft the enforcer.
The first step in any revolution is the seizure of the lines of communication to hinder the target population's ability to communicate and exchange information amongst themselves. Palladium has the ability to do just that, and convert the open fabric of the modern computing environment into a closed, proprietary domain under the rule of Redmond.
Under the Palladium concept -- despite the marketing spin and hype -- the danger is that you will be asked (though not directly) to pledge allegiance to Microsoft and its dismal record of security and reliability while unwittingly relinquishing your ability to remain an independent person in cyberspace. In essence, you'll go back to the future instead of forward to innovation and enlightenment.
I assume that this was just a tongue-in-cheek quip along the lines of "Well who would want to connect to a webserver running IIS anyway?" but really this is not a terribly helpful attitude to take cuz were this to actually happen it would kill the internet as far as it being a usable entity for me and many others.
If this day comes around you can say goodbye to buying stuff online ("I'm sorry, but for you to purchase Widget X we require you to use a Trusted Computing Client such as Windows Fista SP32, Thank you! Come again!"), Internet Banking or potentially even sending emails to a the majority of people and businesses.
If you think this is fine and dandy then more power to you.
They offer support for TPC, and some of the DRM used may insist on a TPC platform, but this is not actually anything to do with Microsoft.
How can you say that with a straight face? They designed the whole TPC specification. It is they who wanted it in the first place.
It is not something that they have begrudgingly decided to "offer support" for as you have attempted to imply.
The fact is that if Microsoft's vision of a rosy DRM future for us all comes to fuition, we could potentially see linux PC's being denied access to large swathes of the internet simply because Microsoft deems them to be "untrustworthy", due to their refusal to comply with Microsoft's DRM requirements.
Way one: Fight it with your wallet. Don't buy DRM laden crap.
Agreed.
Way two: Write your congress critter.
Doesn't work for non-U.S. citizens, unlikey to work for actual U.S. citizens either.
Way three: Ignore the mainstream media.
Totally unrealistic. While I certainly cannot comprehend the attraction people have towards Justin Timberlake, it is totally unreasonable to expect people to follow different performers in order to make a political statement.
Way Four: Let China save us from our own capitalist overlords. What people in the DRM debate a failing to recognise is that there is absolutely no way in "The Hell Of Being Cut to Pieces" that the Chinese are going to allow themselves to be dictated to by the likes of apple and Microsoft. Don't forget all this crap has "Made In China" stamped all over it. You can bet your bottom dollar that they will make hardware that has no built-in DRM that is capable of running Linux perfectly well.
"what the world needs its just a tad of discipline and self control. no one is forcing you to eat that stuff."
What part of "weak willed plebians" did you fail to comprehend? Do I sound like a weak willed plebian?
However, you are right, I am not forced to eat this stuff, therefore I don't.
On the other hand, what I am forced to do is;
a) deal with children who constantly demand to be fed this crap.
b) pay the inflated health insurance premiums that are required in order to subsidise
the poor eating choices of the aforementioned weak willed plebians.
Anyway, have a nice day. Have an extra 10 donuts for me, ok?
On the flip-side, I've also known clueless "tool" users that, quite frankly, don't give a rats arse that their PC is riddled with malware of varying descriptions unless it adversely affects their own use of the machine.
I've told blissfully ignorant people that their machine is infected and their response is along the lines of;"oh? Really? How? What does that mean? Oh well, it still works ok so I won't worry about it"
As if sugar-soaked foods like donuts and those goddawful "Twinkies" aren't bad enough, some moronic scientist has to discover another addiction vector to get weak willed and stupid plebians hooked on their diabetes and heart disease industry recruitment products.
"Patching" and "new features" (ie functionality) are totally different creatures.
If you scrape your knee and "patch" it with a band-aid, you do not add any new functionality to your knee.
A patch by definition does not add functionality.
Patch 1. A small piece of material affixed to another, larger piece to conceal, reinforce, or repair a worn area, hole, or tear. [...] 8. Computer Science A piece of code added to software in order to fix a bug, especially as a temporary correction between two releases.
Slashdot Mirror
I said "developing world", not Nigeria, which by no metric I am familiar with could be described as developing.
For the benefit of idiots such as Nanpa here, the developing world is primarily India and China, along with many other SE Asian countries.
These people can choose one of three paths when purchasing their computers.
1) Get a free OS such as Linux
2) Pay the equivalent of several months wages to Microsoft for the right to lease a copy of Windows
or
3) Get a "free" OS by pirating Windows.
Unsurprisingly, most of them choose box #3. Microsoft knows this, therefore they have taken great care not to make #3 an unviable option in the short term at least, because they are afraid that were they to do so, they would force most of the people in these countries to choose box #1.
And that is the worst possible outcome they can imagine.
This is not exactly true. OSX will take it on board, in fact they (apple) had a hand in drafting the "standard" if I recall correctly, OSX is closed source and Microsoft is keen to see apple survive (to a point) to keep the anti-trust dogs at bay.
As far as Linux is concerned, there is evidence that one of the main objectives of Palladium is to marginalise and destroy Linux. Microsoft knows full well that FOSS cannot properly "embrace" palladium and still retain the GPL.
Microsoft will argue (correctly) that for palladium to work, its internal workings must be kept secret, therefore the only people allowed access to it would be those willing to sign up to highly restrictive non-disclosure agreements with penalties imposed for the leaking of their "secrets".
Obviously this cannot work for a software development model that is predicated on openness and source code sharing.
So, sorry Linux, you can't be trusted, it's "go directly to jail, do not pass go" for you I'm afraid.
"Personally, I find it funny that anyone complains, as such things have been going on since the early 80s."
Personally, I find it funny ironic that Microsoft attained their present state of near-monopoly on the backs of the very pirates that they are now working so hard to close down.
I find it even more ironic that they choose to be much more lenient towards piracy in the developing world where they have still not managed to attain the state of vendor lock-in that is required in order for them to successfully pursue more onerous anti-piracy measures without running the risk of turning their future potential customers towards alternatives such as Linux.
Microsoft, eating their cake and having it too!
FYI, the quoted material above is from the article previously cited at The Register
Well, congratulations on preferring Windows to Linux on the desktop. I disagree wholeheartedly but I accept that is your to maintain that position.
What I don't understand is why I should accept becoming the internet equivalent of persona non gratis just because I choose not to accept being lorded over by some suited clowns in Redmond.
The paragraphs I quote below were written in 2002, over five years ago regarding Microsoft and their DRM intentions. It is eerily accurate. It could in fact have been written yesterday about Vista.
I suggest that you read it and think very carefully about where you hoist your metaphorical flag in this debate. I don't even care whether Vista is really better than Linux or not. To argue about such things is to miss the point entirely.
What we are talking about here is freedom. Freedom to choose and freedom to express, no more, no less.
With this announcement, Microsoft competitors and independent programmers should be gearing up for another court case, as this concept reeks of Redmond's historic anti-competitive tactics in the marketplace. Savvy consumers should be very concerned that Palladium will mean that their computers and information are no longer under their positive control but rather under the omnipresent surveillance and enforcement of a third party more interested in turning a profit than empowering their customers to think and act for themselves. The computer will essentially become a tool of surveillance, judgment and control over users, rather than a tool of innovation, communication, and enlightenment.
Given the pervasiveness of computers in modern society, the worldwide social ramifications of Palladium are enormous. Consider the ability of one entity -- in this case, Microsoft -- to dictate acceptable behavior and content (remember Smart Tags?) in service of its own commercial aspirations. If your behavior or actions are deemed 'unacceptable' by such a third party, you could find yourself impotent on the global stage. So you'd better toe the party line and be a good little Windows user.
Palladium represents a modern 'innovation' which could lead to a Digital Dark Age: a period of innovative stagnation where the majority of the world's computing population will become unwitting subjects and indentured servants to the profiteering desires of the new corporate ruling class, and Microsoft the enforcer.
The first step in any revolution is the seizure of the lines of communication to hinder the target population's ability to communicate and exchange information amongst themselves. Palladium has the ability to do just that, and convert the open fabric of the modern computing environment into a closed, proprietary domain under the rule of Redmond.
Under the Palladium concept -- despite the marketing spin and hype -- the danger is that you will be asked (though not directly) to pledge allegiance to Microsoft and its dismal record of security and reliability while unwittingly relinquishing your ability to remain an independent person in cyberspace. In essence, you'll go back to the future instead of forward to innovation and enlightenment.
I assume that this was just a tongue-in-cheek quip along the lines of "Well who would want to connect to a webserver running IIS anyway?" but really this is not a terribly helpful attitude to take cuz were this to actually happen it would kill the internet as far as it being a usable entity for me and many others.
If this day comes around you can say goodbye to buying stuff online ("I'm sorry, but for you to purchase Widget X we require you to use a Trusted Computing Client such as Windows Fista SP32, Thank you! Come again!"), Internet Banking or potentially even sending emails to a the majority of people and businesses.
If you think this is fine and dandy then more power to you.
Do you have a relationship with your toaster?
Hey that sounds like fun!
"Hi, i'm talky toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion. Would anybody like some toast?"
Obviously you are not good with metaphors.
I suggest you educate yourself. Try an online dictionary for starters.
They offer support for TPC, and some of the DRM used may insist on a TPC platform, but this is not actually anything to do with Microsoft.
How can you say that with a straight face? They designed the whole TPC specification. It is they who wanted it in the first place.
It is not something that they have begrudgingly decided to "offer support" for as you have attempted to imply.
The fact is that if Microsoft's vision of a rosy DRM future for us all comes to fuition, we could potentially see linux PC's being denied access to large swathes of the internet simply because Microsoft deems them to be "untrustworthy", due to their refusal to comply with Microsoft's DRM requirements.
If you eat your cake, do you still have it?
Good grief you must be stupid.
Way one: Fight it with your wallet. Don't buy DRM laden crap.
Agreed.
Way two: Write your congress critter.
Doesn't work for non-U.S. citizens, unlikey to work for actual U.S. citizens either.
Way three: Ignore the mainstream media.
Totally unrealistic. While I certainly cannot comprehend the attraction people have
towards Justin Timberlake, it is totally unreasonable to expect people to follow
different performers in order to make a political statement.
Way Four: Let China save us from our own capitalist overlords. What people in the
DRM debate a failing to recognise is that there is absolutely no way in
"The Hell Of Being Cut to Pieces"
that the Chinese are going to allow themselves to be dictated to by the likes of
apple and Microsoft. Don't forget all this crap has "Made In China" stamped all
over it. You can bet your bottom dollar that they will make hardware that has no
built-in DRM that is capable of running Linux perfectly well.
In fact they are already doing it
"what the world needs its just a tad of discipline and self control. no one is forcing you to eat that stuff."
What part of "weak willed plebians" did you fail to comprehend? Do I sound like a weak willed plebian?
However, you are right, I am not forced to eat this stuff, therefore I don't.
On the other hand, what I am forced to do is;
a) deal with children who constantly demand to be fed this crap.
b) pay the inflated health insurance premiums that are required in order to subsidise
the poor eating choices of the aforementioned weak willed plebians.
Anyway, have a nice day. Have an extra 10 donuts for me, ok?
I was thinking more along the lines of " ...fossilized dinosaurs... fill our tanks *cue theme from BP advert*"
Ironically, the dinosaurs are playing a leading role in our own Global Warming Saga.
LOL!
Would that mean creating a correlatory icon for "clever bad science"?
What about "stupid good science"?
On the flip-side, I've also known clueless "tool" users that, quite frankly, don't give a rats arse that their PC is riddled with malware of varying descriptions unless it adversely affects their own use of the machine.
I've told blissfully ignorant people that their machine is infected and their response is along the lines of;"oh? Really? How? What does that mean? Oh well, it still works ok so I won't worry about it"
Just what the world needs.
/. doesn't have an "Only in America" tag?
As if sugar-soaked foods like donuts and those goddawful "Twinkies" aren't bad enough, some moronic scientist has to discover another addiction vector to get weak willed and stupid plebians hooked on their diabetes and heart disease industry recruitment products.
How come
Congratulations, you got first post.
Pity it doesn't matter since you are AC
"Patching" and "new features" (ie functionality) are totally different creatures.
If you scrape your knee and "patch" it with a band-aid, you do not add any new functionality to your knee.
A patch by definition does not add functionality.
Patch
1. A small piece of material affixed to another, larger piece to conceal, reinforce, or repair a worn area, hole, or tear.
[...]
8. Computer Science A piece of code added to software in order to fix a bug, especially as a temporary correction between two releases.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/patch
Turns out it takes approximately a 37-inch 16:9 display to give you the same picture height to which you're accustomed with a 27-inch 4:3 display.
Has anybody noticed how Notebook manufacturers take advantage of that in their marketing efforts.
They take Crapbook Model X, cut a 3rd off the LCD panel and then market it as if it were an improvement. And people buy it!
Morons
Linked article? I thought this was slashdot? Who reads articles here?
/. status symbol, the fristy posty.
Besides, if I read the article I would have no chance of attaining that most vaunted
Unfortunately I did fail at that, oh well.
Don't those distro's already have their own repository systems?
What does cnr do that I cant do with apt-get?
Goddamit, I want the 4.78 seconds that I spent trying to decipher this gibberish back buddy.
Actually, it is not!